All Blog Traffic Is Not Created Equal.

People that know me, know that while writing is my first passion, analyzing stats is my second! Seriously, it’s almost as bad as my love for cheddar/sour cream potato chips:) But there’s something to be said for my attention to detail – something that I’d like for you to take a look at as well. The level of quality of your blog traffic. So here’s what we are going to do today. This will take 5 minutes tops and be well worth it.

1. How Many Pages Your Visitors Look At When They Visit Your Site (The more page views the better)

I’m sure your content is fantastic, but the true measure of whether or not you are engaging your readers is by the number of pages visitors are viewing when they come to your blog. The more they read, the more you can assume that they are getting something from reading it.

Trust me, this is no easy feat. Remember that this is an “average” for your page views. So if you have an average of more than 2 pages viewed per visit on your blog you’re on the right track.

2. The Average Time Visitors Spend On Your Site (The more time spent the better)

I really like this statistic because of how I personally use the web. When I visit some of my favorite sites, I’m probably going to read the latest article there and then keep it open as I apply whatever I’m learning. That’s one way a visitor may spend more time or your site.

Or another way is linked back to the first stat we looked at – page views. Obviously the more pages a person views on your site, the longer they stay on your site, which is our goal as bloggers. The longer a visitor stays, the more they learn from you, the more the begin to trust you and later invest in you.

3. Your Bounce Rate (The lower your number the better)

Your bounce rate tells you the percentage of visitors who enter your blog and “bounce” (leave your site) rather than continue viewing other pages. You want a low number here and this was a stat that I had a lot of trouble with for a good while because when I first started this particular site, my content was not tightly focused enough. If you have a high bounce rate it means that people are visiting your site, not really seeing what they need, and leaving right away.

In fact, I’d say that the number one reason why people may have a high bounce rate is that their content is not meeting the needs of the visitor. There is a mismatch. For instance, if I wrote an article on this blog about cheddar/sour cream potato chips and I get Google traffic that finds me through the phrase “sour cream potato chips” – what do you think will happen? People will visit the article, see that this website is nothing about potato chips or chip coupons and click away – increasing my bounce rate for that article and ultimately for my site. While there is no rule for a good vs bad bounce rate, I like to follow a general guideline. Over 50% is bad. Between 25-50% is average. Under 25% is good.

4. What Should I Do With These Statistics Now That I’ve Seen Them?

Looking at your stats, we’re going to take a look at the bounce rate, number of pages viewed, time spent on those pages and make an educated assessment about the overall quality of the content your site.

Look At The Bounce Rate First
Your bounce rate stats in this section we’re looking at are divided by traffic source (example: Google, Bing, Direct, Yahoo, Facebook, etc.). If all of your bounce rates from these sources are over 50%, I’d say you need to seriously evaluate what you’re writing and who you’re targeting it to.

Look At Time Spent On Your Site Next
This is where things get really interesting. This is where you can evaluate what traffic source is sending you visitors interested in your content. For example, when I take a look at my stats (and you can go even deeper than past the top 10) I notice that Facebook visitors spend way more time on my website hands down. This is an interesting stat because it tells me that the people who click on my links over on Facebook are highly qualified visitors who are very interested in what I have to say. That also means that I need to spend a little more energy over on Facebook. What do your stats tell you?

Now Look At Pages Viewed
Things may overlap with time spent in this area but you also may discover a few new things as well. As I predicted, Facebook had a high number of pages viewed which accounts for time spent on my site, but I noticed that there were some other sites that had a high number of pages viewed as well. All the sites that I guest blogged at for the month, such as my post on Problogger, had a very high number of pages viewed. So did some of my tried and true sites like EzineArticles and Quora. It’s nice to know that some of the old content rich sites still deliver qualified traffic right?

Now that you’ve taken a look into your stats, how are you feeling about the quality of person visiting your site? Tell us a little about your statistics or any new discoveries you’ve made by looking at your stats.

One of the things that I find that most entrepreneurs drop the ball on is basic seo for the images on their websites. The reason why this is a BIG mistake is that Google sends websites traffic from images too. In fact, when I check my website statistics I can see what images are sending me traffic, and there are quite a few! The images that are sending me traffic to my sites typically are ones where I got the keyword phrases REALLY right. Watch this video to see how to get it done in under 4 minutes!

#1 Google Penalty To Avoid

There are a few experts out there who would like to scare you to death about depending on Google for search engine traffic to your site. While I don’t recommend depending on only one marketing strategy, I do highly recommend implementing good search engine optimization practices to maximize all the real, organic traffic you can attract to your site. Why?

So while I think I have covered a lot of fabulous things about grabbing Google traffic as well as the recent Google algorithm updates that have changed the game for some site owners, I thought it was important to give you another side of the coin. Some of the pitfalls (Google penalties) that you can fall into when writing content for the search engines and how to avoid them.

While I could talk about this topic for days, I selected one major Google penalty that you want to avoid for today’s article, because I see it happening so much. Especially by new marketers or frustrated solopreneurs.

Aggressive Link Building

It is no secret that in today’s society we all are looking for a way to do things faster, better, easier, quicker, etc. This is no different with entrepreneurs on the web. Even with all the lightening fast progress that we’ve seen on the web, people still want faster. Even with the great amounts of money you can make online with minimal effort — people still want to make more money by doing less.

In that spirit, a lot of entrepreneurs are trying to artificially build up the ranking and importance of their sites by acquiring links a.k.a. back links to their sites with lightening speed. Unfortunately, this is probably the #1 way for a site owner to suffer a Google penalty and see your site fall in the oh-so-awful Google sandbox. Why? Well, understand the logic…

Google started assessing a site’s importance based on the number of backlinks it had and the quality of those backlinks years ago. Originally the intent made sense, because if you owned a site which was accruing a regular amount of inbound links from reputable sites – it is thought that your site hosted relevant content to the niche you are ranking in. Thus making you relevant and important as well.

Of course Google didn’t count on the fact that marketers were going to figure out a way to put that process on steroids and get hundreds of links to a brand new website in one day, for multiple days! When they saw that happening, they realized that that wasn’t natural inbound linking. And of course Google was not going to reward sites that did this by giving them great ranking – so they began penalizing sites that did this type of unnatural link building and they still do this to this day.

So please be aware of this major link building blunder as you seek inbound links to your site. Do not build links to your site aggressively. If you did nothing and just allow other sites to find your content and link to you naturally there is absolutely no way you will ever have to worry about this penalty. BUT the sit back and wait method is not something I necessarily recommend, especially for folks looking to see immediate results. So in that case, do not actively and aggressively build links to your site by:

1. Joining a large link farm. The quantity and quality of links from this type of source is dubious and Google will penalize you for it.

2. Buying large amounts of links. Google does not want you to buy any links, but if you do, know that you should buy relevant ones and a few at a time.

3. Publishing hundreds of articles at one time. Many people do this because they’ve bought some sort of submission software as a shortcut, but it’s important that you know that you should not publish hundreds of articles at one time. You should trickle the publishing dates so that you do not have too many new links pointing to your site at one time.

In fact, I recommend that you build new links to your site at a rate of 10-15% or less than your existing link totals per month. For example, if you have a site with 100 current links, that means you can safely build in another 10-20 links without drawing any undue notice. Of course, the larger your site, the more links you can safely build on a monthly basis.

Want more writing for Google tips like this? I’ll be talking about a lot more very soon. Stay tuned! In the meantime, take a look at these related articles:

Why Google Still Matters

In this internet age of social media madness, there have been dozens of articles written by marketing “experts” discussing statistics between Google and social media giants like Facebook. Many of these articles discuss how Facebook is taking Google’s place in terms of shear numbers of people using and visiting the site vs. Google. As of this writing, Google still holds the #1 spot and Facebook holds the #2 spot in the rankings. Even with Facebook at #2 though – a lot of entrepreneurs and marketers would like to ignore Google and simply focus on Facebook traffic from fan pages and Facebook ads. Let me explain why, why I will not use it as my marketing model, and why I think Google still matters today.

Why Some Entrepreneurs Are Relying On Facebook

I’ve mentioned in earlier articles that there was an update made to Google’s algorithm (nicknamed the Farmer update) which has changed some of the rankings for sites and individual articles on sites. Some businesses have seen better rankings with this shift, others have pretty much stayed the same, and a few saw a serious drop in ranking a.k.a. traffic to their sites. It is many of these marketers and their friends:) that have decided to make a shift to focusing on social media sources such as Facebook.

Facebook is the second most visited site on the web. I only know a handful of people who do not have a Facebook account and they are over the age of 50. So it is not surprising that marketers and business owners are flocking to this very social and active site. Your prospects are on there. That’s a given. There are very few niches who do not have prospects on Facebook and of course you can create your own Facebook Fan page or Facebook Group to attract those people to you and what you do.

There is also the growing popularity of Facebook ads. Once they were not so favored upon – the conversion was awful, but as the site has grown into the mega giant that it is – the popularity and conversion of Facebook ads have seemed to have taken a turn for the better. In fact, there are experts so disillusioned with organic search a.k.a. Google that they teach people how to create Facebook ads that convert and that sell, etc. They teach these types of techniques because they believe that it is a mistake to depend on the search engines for your traffic as you can be dropped from the results at their whim and in turn lose a lot of business.

I cannot deny that Facebook is an extremely viable option for creating relationships, building communities, and really connecting with people who may want to do business with you in the future. Yet having said that – relying on Facebook for traffic to my site is not my marketing model because…

People Use Facebook and Google Differently

Although I realize that Google has attempted to jump in the social media pool (Google Buzz), the truth is – is that they aren’t very good at it. I mean I don’t know that many serious marketers who even bother with Buzz — not when there’s Twitter. So let’s just put that out there. Google does not do “social” really well. BUT that’s what makes the two powerhouses different. People use Google and social media sites very differently.

Think about it.

When you want to do a little research on dog food or gardening tips, you don’t go on Facebook to search for this type of information – for solutions. You go to Google. You “Google it”. When I want to see what one of your old friends from high school is doing, you go to Facebook. Now you may also visit my Article Marketing Income Fan Page, but maybe that’s because you were already logged into your account and saw something interesting come up on your wall that I posted to my page. So you stopped by – which I appreciate by the way:) But that’s another point…

People drive traffic to their Facebook Fan Pages. Google doesn’t have to do this (in terms of search anyway). We are already programmed to use Google to search for information. They don’t have to do anything fancy to lure us there. The statistics are clear. Google dominates search. Yahoo and Bing come up a far distant second and third. Which totally supports my position that…

Google Still Matters — A Lot!

Google by far is the dominant tool used for search. They also own YouTube which is the #3 site in the rankings. Where your content lies in Google matters very much and instead of trying to beat the system, cheat the system, or be mad at the system — the much easier alternative is to learn the system and get in where you fit it! The marketers who “hate Google” or who are finding this powerhouse all of sudden not as relevant as it use to be are what I like to call “haters”.

They hate the fact that they have lost some of their “free” (by the way:) traffic to their sites because Google has penalized them for either bad backlinking or content farming. They hate the fact that they were able to obtain terrific traffic by creating mediocre at best content — but now are finally being held up to a higher standard.

The rules are simple with Google.

Write informative content and publish it to relevant outlets (including your own site) and you should never encounter any problems with Google. I know I haven’t, and it’s been since 2002 for me. In fact, you are rewarded with great positioning in the search engines which brings you a ton of new traffic; but if you write junk and spread that same junk around to hundreds of other sites — Google will penalize you and off you and your site go into the bottomless sandpit.

Conclusion

As I have mentioned before in other articles, the economy is affecting the way many marketers do business online. Many entrepreneurs simply don’t have the disposable income to throw around on the latest marketing strategy. Finally, business owners are being forced to make smarter decisions about what they will spend their money on and what strategies they will use to market their businesses — so with that in mind — it would be foolish for you to not consider focusing on search engine traffic (which is 100% free) as a major part of your marketing strategy.

Ready to learn more about how to write content especially for Google. Content that Google will love and rank high, which will send you steady streams of search engine traffic. Stay tuned for more news about my upcoming event which will teach you how to write, rank, and stay ranked in Google and the other search engines!

What To Include In A Testimonial

Recently a few of my members had the opportunity to receive a free copy of my soon-to-be-released program Easy Article Submission Secrets. All I asked in return was if they found value in it, to give me a testimonial about it.

As many of you may already know, sometimes getting a testimonial from even the most satisfied customer/client is like pulling teeth! Many entrepreneurs simply freeze up and don’t know how to say what they want to say, or sometimes they have no idea what they really should say. So you know what happens? Nothing.

Now getting nothing or not receiving any sort of feedback on my products, is definitely not what I want happening in my business. I want the social proof that testimonials offer for potential sales AND it’s not great for the person trying to write the testimonial as well, because if they don’t get it done, they miss out on an opportunity for free publicity. And you should never pass up the opportunity for free exposure.

So I thought it was a good idea, right here and right now, to explain to you why you should write testimonials for other entrepreneurs and what to include in those testimonials.

Why Should You Write Testimonials?

So what’s in it for you other than great karma? Well, you should write testimonials because of several factors. First, testimonials can bring you backlink love and this works if the entrepreneur’s sales page allows live links to be placed under their testimonials. Now while a whole lot of marketers don’t do this, there are those that still do and you will benefit from their search engine ranking.

Second, testimonials bring you traffic. I track this every month and sure enough, testimonials I have written for products that I have found very useful in my business, send me traffic on a monthly basis. Does the traffic compare to say my traffic from the search engines? No. But it’s free traffic that may not have found me any other way – so I’ll take it! This works whether or not your links are live or not. If a person is interested in your business, they will copy and paste that url, and go visit your site.

Third, a potential client or customer will associate you with the site they saw your testimonial on. Or in other words – birds of a feather flock together. This is great for you if the product is good, so remember to write testimonials for products and services that you truly find valuable. Something that you would refer to people even if there was nothing in it for you.

What To Include In Your Testimonial

If you’re going to write a testimonial, you might as well do it right, and be featured prominently on a sales page or in the front copy of someone’s book. So in order to get your testimonial selected quickly, you need to write a BENEFIT RICH testimonial. Not just a blurb about how cool the product was! You need to include a bit more. For example:

1. Use numbers. “Articology improved my writing production by 32% per week. This was just the training I needed to gain forward momentum.” or “I received over 27 new subscribers this week after publishing only 3 of my blog articles. Thanks Lisa!”

2. Stress benefits. “My list became more interactive with me after I learned how to publish my own ezine from Lisa.”

Also, I have been contacted before by people who have read my testimonials for other products. That’s right. People actually do verify the testimonials that you have on your site/blog. So make sure to include all your information for your testimonial. Several of those initial contacts ended up working with me in some capacity. This is what you should include:

1. Your Full Name

2. Your Business Name

3, Your URL (Very important! Use only one though, and if you don’t have one, use your business based email address – no free ones.)

4. Your City, State, Country

5. A headshot or lifestyle shot of you. (Don’t worry about size. The site owner will crop the image for you.)

Testimonial Bonus Tip – To track your testimonial traffic, you can assign a specific url for testimonials. For instance, I often sign my testimonials with ArticleMarketingQueen.com. When I get traffic from that specific url, I know it’s because someone saw it on a testimonial, which gives me a better idea of how many people have found me through a particular site.

Testimonial Bonus Tip 2 – To get your testimonial guaranteed visibility, send the product owner a video testimonial. These are very easy to do and business owners love ’em!

Any thoughts on writing or gathering testimonials? Leave ’em in the comment section below and let’s get a conversation going…

Website Traffic Building – Interview With MarketingDotCom

Next month you can find me being interviewed by uber marketer Mike Filsaime in his exclusive MarketingDotCom Print Newsletter (January 2011 Issue). For all of you who are already subscribers, I’m on page 9 discussing what I think will be the traffic trends for 2011. If you’re not a subscriber, you can grab a free issue to try it out over on: http://mikefilsaime.com/join-newsletter/.*

This is a very big interview for me because Mike’s newsletter is quite popular and is physically in the hands of thousands of people every month, so I’m real excited about it. I just love print newsletters. I’ve always subscribed to them, because I can always refer back to them. Even though I know that the nature of internet marketing is lightening fast – there are still so many points that are tried and true and are still relevant to this day (such as article marketing:)

Website Traffic Building – Trend Alert!

Being interviewed for this article really got me thinking about how I could help my community (meaning you:) this year, because I realize as the web grows by leaps and bounds (and pages and pages:), that it is more important than ever for us to be consistent, diligent, and precise when it comes to traffic generation and building content to attract that traffic.

This is an exciting time in the field of digital content these days. More electronic readers (e-readers) are being developed. More ebook publishers are jumping in the ring (even Google). Trust me when I say that it’s more important than ever to understand that you MUST publish content on the web — especially articles & ebooks to see your business grow. While I love physical books and print newsletters — the truth is — is that the movement of the publishing industry is into epublishing. And that opens up a world of opportunities for writers and marketers and entrepreneurs like us!

2011 is our year to make a website traffic building explosion! Make sure to look for me to talk more about this topic over the next few days and weeks – because it is absolutely essential to your business growth next year.

* (Not an affiliate link & you do have to pay for shipping and handling)

Top 5 Ways To Repurpose Blog Articles

The wonderful thing about writing articles is that you can use them for so many other things than just one site submission. You can use them over and over, and I wrote a guest article over on one of my favorite blogging sites (FamousBloggers.net) about how to do just that.

How To Submit Your URL To Google Manually

Many people like to start new businesses, blogs, and other entrepreneurial adventures at the top of the year. I myself am one who is big on “fresh starts” as well. So if you are going to be creating a new blog for business or for fun this year, I want to show you how to quickly add your site’s url to Google and get it indexed quickly.

There are a couple of ways that you can go about doing this easily and properly – which I’m going to quickly cover in a mini article series. There is a method to my madness, so here it goes:)

Submit Your URL To Google Manually

When you submit your url to Google manually, you are submitting your web address to Google so that their “spiders” can come take a look at your site, crawl some or all of your pages, and then count the site as one of the millions of websites on the internet.

If your site is not indexed by Google or any other search engine (Yahoo, Bing), then people will only be able to gain access to your website if they have your direct address. They will not be able to find you during a basic search engine search and that would be disastrous for your business. Organic traffic (free traffic) is the best!

The pros about manual submission is that it is a direct path into the index. No middle men. No freebie submission service doing it for you. You are in control. The cons about manual submission is that you really have no control over how long it will take Google to crawl and index your website. This is a problem for some people – but it really wasn’t for me. I was never in a rush to get indexed, because I was busy building my content, products, etc. By the time I was ready for a little free traffic, my sites were indexed.

2. Here you will add your full url address [http://LisaAngelettie.com] including the prefix (http://)

3. Make sure you add the top page of your site (the home page), not another page on the site.

4. Make sure that you are submitting the actual url of the website, not a domain name that you are using for forwarding.

5. There is a comment section where you can submit keywords related to your website. Google says that this doesn’t make a difference in your submission approval, but I think it’s a good idea to add a few keywords here. For example, if I were submitting my site, I would add “article marketing” in the comment section.

6. It’s optional, but I think Google gives a slight preference to human submitted sites – so fill out the captcha information before you click the ADD URL button. There are software bots that can submit your site for you, so they want to differentiate whether your submission was made by a human or a bot.

7. That’s it! After you’ve submitted your url to Google, you just have to periodically do a Google search for your site and see if it’s listed. Until such time – work on your articles – especially for your site. Google loves websites with content and it’s my experience that they get indexed a little faster:)

Do you have any tips on manual url submissions to Google? Let us know in the comments section below, we’d love to hear them!